


paved with good intentions

by Anonymous



Category: Minecraft (Video Game), Video Blogging RPF
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-08
Updated: 2020-12-22
Packaged: 2021-03-07 19:07:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,181
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26892667
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: Even now, gormlessly watching Niki solve his most salient problem, Wilbur can't help but see himself as the hero. And that's fine. It's part of what makes him such a wonderful friend. It's all of what makes him such a terrible leader. She ignores his petulant strop in the background and speaks directly to Schlatt and Quackity."You will listen to me, now." The president nods once, cackles wildly, nods again despite the full-body wheezes that rack him from horn to heel. It almost skewers him on her sword."Prime, I hope she fucking ruins you all," he whispers through a final giggle.---Niki has had enough. Tired and underappreciated, overly taxed and ignored at every opportunity, she decides to fix things herself. No matter the cost.
Relationships: Alexis | Quackity & Niki | Nihachu, Eret & Niki | Nihachu, Floris | Fundy & Niki | Nihachu, Jschlatt & Niki | Nihachu, Niki | Nihachu & Everyone, Niki | Nihachu & Technoblade, Niki | Nihachu & Toby Smith | Tubbo, Niki | Nihachu & TommyInnit (Video Blogging RPF), Niki | Nihachu & Wilbur Soot, No Romantic Relationship(s), she is very much the main character here
Comments: 11
Kudos: 138
Collections: Anonymous





	1. Chapter 1

As Wilbur bursts through the door, his triumphant smile falls flat and melts away into horror. Uncertainty nips at his heels. He always did have a flair for the dramatic, for the story of it all, and this isn't the character he thought she would play. Always about him, isn't it? 

"Niki, what the _fuck_ are you doing."

It isn't a question, not really. It's a warning, an invitation to offer an explanation. Completely ignoring her stint as a rebel leader is all that keeps his silly little narrative cohesive. It just wouldn't do for things to derail any further, for the damsel in distress to save herself.

The other two follow close behind. For all his adolescent posturing, Tommy is plainly struck dumb by what he sees. Uncharacteristic meekness stems his tide of visceral words to little more than a pinched face and pursed lips. Ever unaffected, Techno's gaze merely flickers from the sword he gave her to Schlatt's blank expression and back. He raises one eyebrow and lowers his bow in a gesture of good faith. Good for him. Wise man.

"What you were too afraid to do," she says succinctly, and Schlatt begins to laugh. Niki has him pinned to the wall of the community house, a sword in one hand and a potion of harming in the other. Inescapable doom. The inevitability in it reeks, unfortunately, of Eret's pretentious control room. Not that a good plan needs to be original - she stands here in living antithesis. A good plan only needs to work.

It's all such a beautiful...the English word escapes her. Szene. Darstellung. It's all such a beautiful scene - close enough - to be a stationary piece of. The panting, expectant rise and fall of the Pogtopians' chests, the subdued pidgin Spanish emanating from a powerless Quackity, the feral glint of whatever caged beast skulks behind Schlatt's eyes. The moment of stillness is ornamental, magnificent, a Nativity modernised.

Most of all Niki indulges in the knowledge of how dangerous she looks, backlit as she is by the soft ember-bright glow of sunrise approaching. If not for the absence of a few key players she would declare the picture perfect. Wilbur blinks at the empty floorspace as if going through the same internal rigmarole of scenes and staging, a bone-deep similarity which irritates her enough to abandon the daydream in favour of sharp clarity.

Of course! Of all days, of course they would choose today to embark on their little rescue mission. Of course they would take the same opportunity as her to catch the leaders of Manberg alone, albeit with headstrong stupidity and likely next to no preparations. Niki is equal parts mollified that they bothered to come for her and coolly amazed that it took so long. Schlatt notices this minute shift of expression around her eyes and begins to howl in mirth like it's going out of style.

"What's so funny?" Tommy barks. Everyone ignores him. The only exception is the man himself, who leers at everyone and leans forward until his Adam's apple all but sits on her blade.

The kid blanches in obvious discomfort. It must be awful, Niki contemplates, to see one's earliest idol dressed down so. Another issue this necessary altercation will remove.

"Real recognises real," Schlatt snorts, and although the words themselves are nonsense every eye is glued to the bobbing of his throat. Another attention-seeking brat. She tires of it. Niki tires of a lot these days. When Will had first asked her to join his burgeoning nation, she had agreed instantly. He had taken her in then with passionate visions of freedom and independence, not out of malice but out of sheer blinded ambition. She herself remembers aspiring to no more than a dockside bakery and a pet fox. Lofty heights. Neither Niki nor Will had understood, then, the roles they were always destined to play. Now she can watch it all play out from a place of heady detachment, whilst he can't see the forest for the trees.

She has Schlatt and Fundy to thank for that, of course. It had all started when Sapnap, the jumped-up little arsonist who delighted in keeping Dream's hands nominally clean, got it in his head that it would be a fine practical joke to kill her only pet and leave the mess behind. Obligingly, Fundy showed her the importance of exacting retribution on those that had done wrong. Through his own arrogant failures in the subsequent skirmishes, he unwittingly taught her something else; the benefits of only making promises that could be kept. He was still a fine boy back then, despite that pitiful doomed obsession with upstaging his father.

And Schlatt, guffawing against sharpened netherite as his incompetent excuse for a vice president looks on with wide eyes, had helped with everything else. Not on purpose, of course. Taxing her bakery into the ground and imprisoning her for no reason and probably, she has decided at length, pressuring Fundy into burning down her flag, all of it has hardened her into the woman that stands here today with an ultimatum to deliver. Real recognises real. A fitting final platitude. At least somebody here understands her power, for Prime's sake.

Even now, gormlessly watching Niki solve his most salient problem, Wilbur can't help but see himself as the hero. And that's fine. It's part of what makes him such a wonderful friend. It's all of what makes him such a terrible leader. She ignores his petulant strop in the background and speaks directly to Schlatt and Quackity.

"You will listen to me, now." The president nods once, cackles wildly, nods again despite the full-body wheezes that rack him from horn to heel. It almost skewers him on her sword. "You will leave this server. I do not particularly care where you go. You will never come back. There will be no leniency afforded; if I ever see you here again, I will kill you. Then I will kill you again, and again, and again. Do you understand?"

"No need to tell me twice, lady." Quackity sputters something incomprehensible, but Schlatt holds up a grimy hand and the whimpering cuts off like a guillotine. "Sorry, toots. I know when I'm beaten. If there's any more to you than I think there is, you do too. Oh, this is rich." Beckoning to Niki with one hand, he motions his vice president to step away with the other. Stunned and suddenly very small, Alexis backs away to Tommy's side and doesn't react when Pogtopia recoils. A smart decision on Schlatt's part. Maybe he really did care about his trophy vice at the start of all this.

All smiles again, Niki digs around in her newly-washed L'Manberg coat for a battered communicator and tosses it back to its rightful owner. It is just chock-full of interesting servers. Mainly empty husks, but the rest she has written down at the bakery. (Not for any distinct reason, mind. She doesn't _really_ want to hurt anyone.) This necessitates the drop of her sword, but instead of trying to run or fight back he just crosses his arms and leans against the cold stone. Comfortable to the end. She will not miss him.

"Well," she says, "that was pretty easy." He stares at her for a second, slack-jawed, and punches out an IP with a devilish grin before running a hand through his hair in belated acceptance. 

"Prime, I hope she fucking ruins you all," he whispers through a final giggle, and then he slides down the wall to sit. Both horns drag down behind him with a screeching sound that makes Quackity flinch. Tommy is as white as a sheet, Wilbur's mouth a stunned line. "Wish I could say it was fun. Hasta la vista, morons."

An echoing cackle. A click of the fingers. And then he's gone. It's as simple as that. For a moment, they all watch the place where Schlatt had been with varying degrees of concern. The first to move is Quackity. Power having instantly disappeared with his partner, he gnaws at his lip and wraps his arms around himself with unseeing eyes. As the one who accidentally killed him mere weeks ago, she sympathises with the loneliness of it.

"Holy shit, Niki," Tommy babbles, watching him with narrowed eyes and shrewd distrust, "that was cool and scary an' all, but-"

"But L'Manbergians fight with their words," interrupts Wilbur. Relief buoys his tone from admonition to jubilance, solace spilling into the words like cool water over dark rock. Whatever reprimand he meant to deliver is undermined by the emotional equivalent of a thankful sigh.

Hands on his hips, a burdened stance Tommy rushes to emulate, he turns to her with eyes full of asking. The sword and potion slip from her limp hands onto the wood; as the bottle shatters, Niki's real challenge begins.

"I did fight with my words! I did not hurt a single person, and now he is gone!" She plays up her accent, considers a melodramatic tear or two before settling on a straightforward feminine huff. "Will, I thought you'd be proud of me!" It isn't perfect - Quackity is still slow and stupid with fear, and Techno rolls his eyes at her with one nail tapping at his sword - but it's enough.

She knows it's enough when he strides over and plucks her from the ground like it's nothing, up into a lasting hug. Good Prime, his coat smells so fucking bad. It's still nice to be held and recognised and appreciated. It's even nicer when, in a voice almost quiet enough not to disturb his ego, Wilbur whispers a heartfelt thanks. Too little, too late, but it's still nice.

"May I have a word?" she asks Techno when they pull apart, and she can tell Wilbur is going to argue so she keeps on talking. "The boys need to go tell everyone we're free, but I'm a bit lightheaded." At this realisation Tommy literally leaps straight upwards and punches the air, Wilbur not far behind in a barely-restrained yell of victory. A not-quite smiling Techno grunts his assent and stands to attention as the rest of them file out, Niki's question forgotten. Tommy has to drag Quackity by the arm, placating him and cheerfully calling him Big Q as if the war had never even happened. Only the real soldier waits.

"Give me one good reason not to spawntrap you right now and fill it with lava," he says nonchalantly as soon as the others are out of earshot. He draws his own sword with a bright ringing sound and levels it at her forehead. Diamond; he always has been a stickler for the classics. "I already know what you're going to do." It's hardly a thank you. There's a sudden fizzing sound from behind her and Niki wheels around.

The pool of potion has eaten through the floor of the community house, to her chagrin. She watches the foul liquid warp her best sword into a useless twist of metal and pretends not to care. After all, if she wants to earn back the trust of a man like Technoblade, she needs less of the weapons. Less of the dangerous squabbles, less of the raw displays of power...less of the Schlatt.

"Because I'm not like Schlatt," she starts confidently, and forces herself to change tack when Techno's head tilts with layered skepticism. "Wait! Wait. Because I can end these pointless wars, okay? They all play at war like it's a game when Schlatt's not here. We both know you always fight for the underdog; if Wilbur gets back in power then the underdog here will eventually be the DreamSMP. I don't think you want that." Studiously ignoring the scrape of diamond against her brow, she looks up at him. It doesn't bleed - his swordarm is far too steady for that. "I certainly don't."

"Right," he says, unconvinced. But it's a foothold, and even as Niki aimlessly rambles, she realises the kernel of truth in her improvised argument.

"With me in charge, there won't have to be an underdog," she wheedles, fervent with genuine patriotism. "Everyone can do whatever they want, as long as they listen when it really matters. You'll never have to take out Tommy, at least," he stiffens, "and that's more than Dream or Schlatt or Fundy or even Wilbur can offer you." And with that, she's got him. Both of them know that in the absence of any physical weakness on Techno's part, Tommy is their shared fatal flaw.

As legendary heroes go, he looks exhausted. Greying, almost, languidly blinking tired eyes that have seen too much for the youthful face they wear. It's the most emotion Niki has ever seen him display, and she struggles against the sudden compulsion to avert her gaze. He sucks his teeth, lets out a soft sigh, schools his face back into neutrality.

"What is it, then? Exile for me too?"

"Of...of course not," she stutters, genuinely surprised. "Visit whenever you want! I just assumed you'd have some orphans to save and then pretend it wasn't you, you know, business as usual." That draws a rumbling chuckle from him. The Blade she knows is back in full apathetic force. 

"Always do, you know me. You were a good student," he adds, still conflicted even in the compliment. What he says next is strange in his voice. It's the stilted, awkward plea of an antisocial demigod who has never stooped to asking for anything. "Please don't hurt my boys."

"I would _never,_ " she lies through her teeth with steady verve, and feels the raw vindication of the exact instant that Techno believes her. A part of her wants to file this away, to keep the moment in a jar forever. Another says that's cruel - she's just doing her best to help everyone. The loudest part, a steely implacable conviction she has always steadfastly ignored, argues that she isn't lying. Not really. She would only hurt them if they needed it, and isn't that really the same thing?


	2. Chapter 2

Far be it from her to harbour delusions of grandeur. Niki knows her strengths: she has always been pleasant, loyal and as of late, conveniently gifted with a sword. She can bake a mean cake. She likes herself, which is more than most of the server can say. But she's never been the one graced with Wilbur's effortless charisma, or with Dream's near-supernatural foresight.

So there's no way she could have known, but she's still angry when George disappears.

To nobody's surprise, the news of Schlatt's exile dissolves Manberg with frightening immediacy. The loyalists skulk homewards for Dream to deal with - rumour has it he's furious with them - with little protest. Hands shaking, Ponk presses a potion of healing into Niki's grasp as he packs up his medicines. It gleams a coruscating soupy red. She doesn't thank him, not with this many people around, but they both know what it means.

There's a headcount of those remaining, and George is missing already, and Niki struggles to keep up her comforting smile as Wilbur curses. How someone who slept through the majority of his time in office, someone who is really her only trump card if everything goes to hell, manages to fade away so subtly is baffling. And infuriating; George running back to his best friend at the first opportunity represents so much more than just that. It means Dream is paying attention again. It means Big Brother calling. This does not bode well for anyone.

Quackity has no such defence.

Nobody seems quite sure what to do with him. Neither side quite wants him, and Wilbur and Tommy don't have the heart to hurt him like they should. Or maybe that's a lie. Niki can't ignore the cold, cold hunger in Wilbur's eyes before Tommy shoulder-checks him into himself again from behind a strained smile. Exile has not been kind to the pair of them.

Eventually, Hbomb and Sam ride out of the forest where they've been watching the commotion and ask him if he'd like to come with them. The affable drug dealer in Quackity is cloaked in sobriety nowadays, the flirtatious vice president mortally wounded. Niki watches him realise that in the wake of all he's let happen, "woodland loner" is as good an identity as any to slip into. His head droops.

Sam, who has carefully avoided the war and its belligerents, pats his shoulder with cheerful ignorance. Hbomb, who still has nightmares about the night he saw Tommy on the skeleton horse, finds her eyes through the crowd and shrugs minutely. Both of them walk him into the trees, slowly, as if he will fall. Their horse paws at the turf once and follows. Their motley crew watches him go and Tubbo, uncharacteristically, is silent.

An impromptu party starts up outside the remains of Will's old van. It's decidedly tense; Eret's absence is more obvious than ever before, and Thunder's last interaction with the President was an arrow through the shoulder. In fact, Niki realises, she's the only one here who hasn't betrayed the two of them in some way. This gives her comfort when it very much should not.

Shapeless melancholy sits in the contrast between Schlatt's developments and the old buildings. Sleek, modernistic office blocks dot the land. None of it quite gels with the purposefully medieval feel of the server. Manberg itself - the original territory, redwood trees and river and lake all - has been reduced to little more than a muddy field.

It isn't as abhorrently destructive as the old TNT damage, back when she had first joined. Those craters had taken hours of shoveling dirt just to stop the river from flooding. Now, it's simple apathy that haunts the wilted grass and abandoned houses. It used to be so beautiful.

It will be beautiful again.

"I know you'll never believe me," Fundy says with flattened ears under the glare of noon, unwilling to meet anyone's eyes, "especially not after the flag. But I really was trying to stop it all. Stop Schlatt. Like, I was pissed at you, but not...not that much. I'm sorry." No more prim suit, no more pastel coat; he hefts logs onto the fire with his old jacket tied loosely around his waist. Conversations sputter and die around them until the only sound is the rattle of wood on stone.

Wilbur simply looks at him for a few moments, and Niki starts forward in case he decides to slap the shit out of Fundy on what should be a day of celebration.

"I believe you," he says simply. Only Tubbo notices her movement, and he merely raises one eyebrow. Too perceptive, she notes, for his own good. "Schlatt has been getting in people's heads for a very long time. No shame in it." They clasp arms unwieldily, not quite a handshake but not quite a hug, and that's that.

Everyone assumes that it was Techno who got rid of Schlatt. Who else would resort to such underhanded tactics as threats at swordpoint? Who else would even have a spare netherite sword to hand? Who else?

Who else indeed. The sum of Techno's time on the server is a scattering of disused farms and a peremptory note. It's almost as if he was never here at all. Something mild and almost like guilt surfaces at the thought, but really, Niki is sure they'll all be happier. The Blade was always meant to be stabbing those who could respawn in new and interesting ways. Being here any longer would have broken him, she's sure.

Wilbur doesn't correct the presumption when it arises. Tommy almost does, but Niki watches him think better of it from afar. Abandonment is something the kid takes seriously, even when it's a nomad like Technoblade who was never going to stay for long. It's easier, she's sure, to let everyone believe his disappearance was an act of heroism. To believe it himself, at the cost of time. She will allow it.

The five of them eat themselves silly all afternoon on a frankly meagre feast. Handfuls of old and mulchy food: mainly coarse bread and wet carrots and Techno's precious potatoes. Someone passes around one of her own cakes, stale but dusted in fresh sugar from the riverbank. It's hardly a banquet, all war rations and personal hoards, but Niki thinks she understands. When they're eating they don't have to talk. When they're choking down gristle and frying old bread and prodding beets around charred logs, nobody has to examine the awful suddenness of change. The shitty meal tastes like victory.

See, Niki isn't blind. Manberg wasn't as awful for everyone as it was for her. There will be questions, of autocracy and of infrastructure, to be answered. Delicacy and care are required to build L'Manberg back to a place its people can be proud of, can want to be a part of. At least she knows that.

Sunset approaches, in its way, and Tubbo leaps out of Tommy's lap to say the first thing he's said since the dissolution of Manberg.

"Look!"

Thanks to the sucking empty space where the walls used to sit and protect, both of Eret's towers loom more menacingly than ever over L'Manberg. A single lithe silhouette moves across the sky, and from the battlements of the northern spire a sloppily-painted banner unfurls. 

_**WELCOME HOM** _   
_**E** _

Niki claps her hands with glee, for more reasons than she can name. This is so perfect. Eret has never betrayed _her,_ after all, and ever since the election he's been an inimitable source of resources and comfort. You'll always know where you stand with people like that - their company is to be enjoyed, but never trusted.

The untrustworthy are predictable, in their own wild way. They turn into the wind of power like a wolf on a scent. Secretary of Treasury, the shape of a brave new world trembling at her fingertips, Niki Nihachu looks up at the skyline and intends to be the gale.

"-and it was a commune, so nobody was really in charge," Tommy is finishing self-importantly as she slopes back downhill.

"Sounds smart," Thunder nods with obliging awkwardness, waving to Niki. "Hey! I don't think I ever really apologised for the whole, y'know, prison thing, not that I wanted them to do that to Ze Haus," he snaps together his bitone glasses to look her in the eye properly, "it was a whole thing, I'm just sorry that-"

She waves it off gracefully, as befits her image, and gathers him into a forgiving hug. Forgiving is fine, in her experience. Forgetting is the unrealistic part. Between her lashes Niki watches Tommy's expression flicker with obvious jealousy. This is really too easy.

"It's alright! Really." He's captivated, so long ignored, finally recognised. It's a good thing she noticed it this early. "You listened to me in the end, and that's what counts. You know Celestia would be proud," she says. Jack goes bright pink and mumbles his thanks before shuffling away towards the fire, fumbling his shades back on. One in the bag, one on his way.

Watching him go, Tommy glances sideways at her with unsubtle deliberation. "What's on your mind?" Niki asks brightly.

"Nothin'," he lies. "Jus' thinking." She pretends to look shocked at this staggering revelation, and he pretends to punch her in the arm, and it's good. It's nice. It's really very nice.

As it turns out, she doesn't even have to talk to Wilbur. He does what she wanted to, better himself than she ever could. Something important to remember, when you're trying to save people from themselves, is that before you they were doing it alone. But now Niki can take up that mantle.

"I love you all very much," the newly-reinstated President says in a weary voice. This is admittedly not how anyone had expected the tide of war to subside. The fire crackles in response, crimson light tonguing hungrily at his cheekbones. "And I'll be honest, I don't know what happens next. It's all rather complicated on an interpersonal level," Fundy, Thunder and Tubbo all suddenly find the night sky very interesting as his lips purse, "and Dream could be here tomorrow with a demand to surrender. I don't-I just don't know. Tonight...tonight we'll just rest, alright?"

"Alright," someone throws out into the fragile quiet. It's Tubbo. He looks at Wilbur differently than before; shrewder, less adoring. The respect is still there, but Niki gets the sudden impression that she has missed something very important. "But for the love of Prime, can someone _please_ get me out of this fucking suit?"

They all break down laughing, relieved hysteria dampened by the holes left where Eret's gravelly chuckle and Techno's quiet snorting should be. It's so funny that Wilbur and Tommy start sobbing outright. She notices, and chuckles demurely, and does not cry.

It is the 8th of October, 2020. This is the best way things could possibly have happened.

**Author's Note:**

> according to ao3 statistics, it's pretty poggers of you to check that kudos button and leave your thoughts down below :)


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